The Final Task
by quibbler.reporter
Summary: At 4 a.m. Dumbledore sat alone in his office, waiting for his spy to return. At 4 a.m. it had more than nine hours since Dumbledore watched Severus Snape double over in pain on the stands outside in converted Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, his right hand clutching his burning left forearm. Canon compliant. Rated for implied torture.
1. Chapter 1

It was 4 a.m., and Albus Dumbledore hadn't moved from his chair for hours. His body and mind were exhausted, and he knew Hogwarts would need him to be sharp in the morning. But sleep wouldn't be coming tonight, not between Dumbledore's frequent glances at the clock on his wall or hard swallows as the lump in his throat and knot in his stomach seemed to get larger by the minute. Not when every time he closed his eyes, he imagined what it would be like to wake tomorrow and still not have his potions' master back in the castle.

At 4 a.m., it had been nine hours since Harry Potter appeared outside the transformed Quidditch patch clutching the dead body of one of Dumbledore's brightest students, the head boy Dumbledore personally selected - Cedric Diggory.

At 4 a.m., it had been eight hours since Severus Snape revealed the dark blemish on his left forearm to the Minister of Magic, of all people. It was a rash move for Severus, Dumbledore thought, but perhaps not a surprising one.

Dumbledore and his heads of house had sat in their own stadium box for the third task. Minerva had spent the duration of the Triwizard Tournament in a state of permanent agitation and anxiety. She stood at his side, as usual, but regarded him coldly, lips retreating into her infamous thin line as she watched Harry Potter disappear with Cedric Diggory into the maze. Severus drifted to a corner, as usual, sharp eyes scanning potential threats in his school - Karkaroff, looking paler and more jumpy than usual, and Ministry officials in their preening authority. Dumbledore thought he stood on the edge of Hogwarts' Quidditch pitch for hours before Severus let out a guttural groan, the nails of his right hand in a clawing grasp on his left forearm while he started to double over, backing himself away from the crowd of teachers. The box seemed to move towards him at once, but Madam Sprout was the first to his side.

"Severus! Are you hurt?" She grabbed his shoulder, but Snape flinched way.

"Get off me woman." he growled through clenched teeth. Snape's eyes frantically searched for Dumbledore's, and the moment they met, Dumbledore saw a flash of panic. Everything suddenly seemed far away except a hard pounding in his head and bile accumulating in his throat.

"Let me take you to the hospital wing Severus," Minerva stepped in. She was too shrewd, and faster on her feet than Dumbledore this time. "With those potions you brew down in your dungeon, there's no telling what you've done to yourself. You need Poppy."

"I.." Severus started, wavering at first then forceful. "I mean, I find myself needing to speak with the headmaster.

Dumbledore hoped he was doing a better job at keeping a calm face than Severus. The potions master's normally blank eyes were intense through the pain. Severus let out another small groan and cradled his arm to his chest, eyes clamping shut, body stiffening and skin growing paler. For a moment, Severus looked as though he was going to be sick right there.

"I honestly don't think.." Madam Sprout spurted. "You're in pain Severus. Let's get you back to the castle."

"I can escort Severus back to the castle, Pomona," Dumbledore finally cut in. "I fear Severus's ailment might be related to a potion I'm having him brew, I will be able to best explain to Poppy. Minerva, I can trust you to handle things?"

"Of course Albus." She was skeptical, and not at all happy with being kept in the dark. Dumbledore feared he would be explaining more than he wanted to her soon.

The pair moved quickly down a flight of stairs and out of the crowd's sight. Severus closed his eyes again and swayed.

"It's getting stronger, he's getting angrier," Snape croaked. After a moment's silence he doubled over and was sick behind one of Hogwarts' large, wide trees.

"What do you know?" Dumbledore asked abruptly, handing Severus a handkerchief as the younger man coughed and heaved.

"Just that he's summoning us, and that he's very, very angry," Severus answered with a slight tremble. "Karkaroff fled, did you see him? At the same moment my mark burned. I don't know if he went to the Dark Lord, but…"

"I noticed, I saw his face. If he joins Tom, I don't think he'll make it out. He knows that. But I don't think he'll get far, Tom will know how strongly Igor disavowed him"

"Why haven't you secured Potter?" Severus changed the subject abruptly, but Dumbledore didn't miss the tremor that ran through his hand. Tom had a temper, he would find all of his disloyal followers.

"I can't interfere with the tournament until the cup is touched. Nobody could once Moddy activated the portkey. We'll only be able to search for him once someone wins or he sends up sparks"

"That," Severus spat, "is one of the dumbest rules of this entire tournament, and you know how I feel about this damned thing."

"He's safer if he's in the maze."

Severus looked on him, comprehension dawning. "I need to go then."

"If you go now, I will have no Harry Potter and no spy," Dumbledore retorted. "You can't fetch him from underneath Tom's nose and live to regale me with the tale."

Severus glanced up at his mentor.

"You know what I mean. You will join Tom, but not now."

"Do you know…"

"Yes Severus, I know what you will face. You must convince him that you are still loyal. Perhaps I flatter myself, but Tom will not throw away the chance to have a Death Eater this close to me. But now, I need you here. We must assume Harry is still in the maze or that he will return. Either way, your role does not change."

Severus finally drew himself up to his full height. Dumbledore could tell his arm still pained him, but Snape seemed to have mastery over the pain now.

"And if the boy dies tonight?"

Dumbledore felt the heaviness settle deep in his gut. He had made so many plans. He had been so careful. Yet this was happening, and Harry Potter was out of his sight, beyond his control. "Then you can know there was nothing you could have done, I think Lily would know that."

Snape flinched.

"The best way to protect Harry now is to do as I say. You promised me anything, Severus."

And with that, Dumbledore knew he had won the potions master over.

"If I am to, what I mean to say is… I should prepare to return. I have potions, supplies in my rooms I can fetch." Snape avoided meeting Dumbledore's eye.

"Yes, when the time comes, you should be ready to go immediately. But if we are to play these parts, you cannot disappear for too long. I'll send Padfoot with a note to Poppy. He can bury what you need outside Hagrid's pumpkin patch. You will can get off the castle grounds by the Forbidden Forest."

Snape looked momentarily mutinous at the mention of his old enemy.

"You will not have to see him and no one will know what it is for, Severus, honestly. We have so few people, these schoolboy rivalries must end."

"If he won't know what they're for.." Severus trailed off. "Then I will meet you back at the stands while you commune with the mutt, wherever you've hidden him. If the worst has happened, there is someone in that crowd who has outwitted you."

Severus had a point, Dumbledore thought, and he looked well enough again. Dumbledore nodded and Snape, face masked again, if a little grey and more sallow than this morning, and stalked back to the stands.

Dumbledore left to instruct Hagrid to find a dog.

Dumbledore moved his hand to a discarded quill on the edge of his desk. He picked it up and let his hand hover over the parchment that outlined the plans he needed to make for the next year. For the next war. The last time he sent messages to Amelia Bones, to the outcasts of the Black family, to Molly Weasley's family, the last time he issued invitations to the Order of the Phoenix, he had been a younger man, and writing out such plans hadn't been necessary. Tonight had reminded Dumbledore exactly how old he was, how ill-equipped his plans, how foolish he could be. From now on, he could afford precious few mistakes.

Dumbledore's jaw clenched as he thought of his mistakes, tonight in particular. Amos Diggory's wails still played like a loop in a muggle film in the back of Dumbledore's mind. He dropped his quill. He could do nothing tonight, he decided, but wait.

It was 5 a.m. when the door to his office finally creaked open and a weary Severus Snape limped into the chair opposite him.

Dumbledore let out a breath and a small bit of tightness in his chest loosened.

"You were right, I'm back in," Snape said without preamble. "There were others not as lucky. Potter's escape and Crouch's discovery left the Dark Lord very...displeased. I have names, nobody surprising, and little else."

HIs eyes were bloodshot, Dumbledore noticed, and his hands were uncharacteristically tucked behind the black sleeves of his robes. Despite the warmth of Dumbledore's haphazard office, Snape shivered when Dumbledore let the silence stretch too long.

"Nothing else?"

"Some creative new curses if you'd like to hear them."

Dumbledore ignored this.

"That you are back in the circle is all we could have hoped for tonight. Everyone is safe for the time being. Let's get you to your rooms, you can give me your report tomorrow."

"I'm perfectly.."

"Don't argue with me Severus."

Snape got up to leave, slowly, Dumbledore noted. He paused at the door, Dumbledore shortly behind him.

"Whatever is the matter?"

"I don't need an escort."

"I find myself unable to sleep. Perhaps a walk about the castle will help set my mind at ease," Dumbledore said lightly.

"Albus there's really no need."

"Why don't you open the door, Severus?"

Snape looked at him shrewdly. He pulled his hands out from underneath the sleeves of his robes, and Dumbledore had to restrain a gasp.

"I suppose, Snape said in a tone of forced casualness, "if you're going to torture a potions master, you destroy his hands. It'll be a long process to heal them, but I don't have to teach again until fall and Poppy's more than capable of keeping the potions supply stocked when the students are at home and.."

Snape's long fingers stuck out at odd angles, and Dumbledore wasn't sure he recognized the shape of his mangled hand. The entire appendage was a bright purple in the spots where it wasn't almost black Dumbledore grasped the man's wrist to keep what lay below it from trembling.

"Severus you know we need to get you to the hospital wing immediately. The faster you start regrowing the bones, well, they'll be less stiff."

"I know I just.. I didn't want to, not tonight. I wasn't sure.." He swallowed. "I just didn't want to go through that tonight."

Suddenly Snape was breathing hard and he leaned his weight against Dumbledore just the slightest. There was a tinge of desperate wildness in Snape's eyes now. The same panic he'd seen during the Third Task. A mix of embarrassment, fear and fierceness.

"That was the worst of it?"

Snape glared.

"Of course it wasn't, you know that."

"I do."

"The Dark Lord decided it would be part of my punishment. Not to heal them."

Dumbledore reached across his potions master and opened the door, taking closer note of the man he was about to deliver to his mediwitch.

"I'm not him, you know. I can help you protect the people you want to, the people you need to."

Snape considered him for a moment.

"Not always Albus, not today." Snape glanced pointedly at his ruined hands, at the letter to Cedric Diggory's parents sitting unfinished on Dumbledore's desk.

Dumbledore followed Snape down the staircase, watching uneven staggering steps in the dim morning light and knew, he was right.


	2. Lie Low at Lupin's pt 1

Somewhere on his way to sink into the couch, Remus Lupin realized he left his glass of firewhiskey on the kitchen counter.

He stopped, swaying the slightest bit backward.

"Steady, man," he thought, carefully walked back to grab the glass and, with a moment's thought, the rest of the bottle from the cluttered kitchen surface.

It was a Friday night, Remus rationalized. Unlike most of his life up to this point, he was steadily employed. A local Muggle school, this time, thanks to a generous recommendation from Albus Dumbledore.

Lupin's "weak constitution" made him ill-fitted for a boarding school, the recommendation read, but he was an excellent instructor nonetheless. The Muggles were nice enough, Lupin supposed, and they wouldn't notice the pattern in his illness, nor would a teaching job require many night shifts.

Still, it was a dull job, and the magical community was his home. Memories of errant Hogwarts nights and a wild group of boys entered Lupin's thoughts. He shook his head. The magical community used to be his home.

The Triwizard Tournament would be coming to an end soon, he thought anxiously. Remus glanced at the pile of worn parchment sitting on his coffee table. They were letters from Dumbledore, Sirius and Minerva McGonagall. All the letters answered his pleas for information about the tournament and Harry, although none told him everything he wanted to hear.

Remus hesitated, staring at the letters for a moment before reaching for them, scanning the parchment again for clues he might have missed. Sirius, obviously, couldn't tell him much,although Remus assumed he was back in Britain. The squawking tropical birds that delivered the first notes from his old friend had been replaced with the more discreet tawny owls of the British Isles. Sirius couldn't know much more than he did, Remus knew. At least Remus had access to the daily prophet without having to beg for it.

The letters from Hogwarts, on the other hand, infuriated Remus. Dumbledore expected someone inside Hogwarts must have tricked the Goblet into letting Harry compete, Minerva wrote. It wasn't safe for them to share information in case someone intercepted their owl, Dumbledore said.

"You are important to Harry, he needs you where you can help him" the headmaster wrote. "That's nearby, but not in direct contact. You know the situation, I'll come as soon as I can leave Hogwarts."

Remus had even written to his old colleagues Hagrid, Professor Sprout and Professor Flitwick. They all told him the same thing — They saw Harry every day, he was stressed, but unharmed. Remus felt a surge of pride when he read McGonagall's praise of Harry's time in the Black Lake.

Grindylows. They had been a smart lesson.

A bark jolted Remus out of his thoughts. "Whose bloody dog," he started.

Then, he hazily realized that none of his neighbors owned a dog. And this one – this large, black grim-like creature – was rather insistent about being let in this particular door.

With that realization, Reum shot up.


End file.
